In recent years, coastal hypoxic zones have grown in number and size. Hypoxic zones are areas within a body of water with little or no oxygen, which is an often fatal situation for marine life ranging from shellfish, corals and larger fish that are located in such areas. In the year 2014 for example, the Gulf Coast hypoxic zone ranged for approximately five thousand square miles alone the coastal line.
In a memo dated Sep. 22, 2016, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) notes that removing nutrient pollution from waterways is a national priority and cites issues such as Harmful Algae Blooms (“HAB”), as well as other types of algae blooms, found in an increasing number of waterways, as well as the presence of high nitrogen levels in certain drinking water sources. The EPA further notes that, Congress enacted the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act in 2014, which extended the scope of the legislation to include the deployment of solutions to combat freshwater algae blooms and hypoxia.
One major source of nutrient pollution is nitrates and other nitrogen containing compounds, which have the particular effect of increasing the prevalence of intensity of marine algal blooms, such as HABs. More specifically, when algae comprising such blooms die and decompose, specific bacteria consume the organic material, exhausting oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide, thereby creating a hypoxic zone. Such artificially created hypoxic zones amplify hypoxia created by naturally occurring conditions, such as stratification (layering) due to saline or temperature gradients in a body of water.
As indicated above, these oxygen-free hypoxic zones create a significant disturbance to marine life and become notable environmental impacts. Furthermore, there are increasing economic impacts associated with such zone, for example, by negatively affecting coastal fishing and shrimping operations, as well as costal tourism industries. As such, it is reasonable to infer that reducing algal blooms will eventually diminish hypoxic zones.
Nutrient pollution occurs when fertilizer, pet waste, and car exhaust, and other nitrogen rich waste runs into inland waterways, for example, freshwater streams. This type of pollution is referred to as non-source point pollution. Unlike source-point pollution (such as pollution from a factory), which provide for filters or specific designs to limit pollution directly from the source, it is impractical to simply cap or filter non-source point pollution due to the vast number of sources and the complexity of such systems.
The present invention addresses these and other problems by providing a unified, self-contained device that denitrifies the nutrient polluted water when deployed in such waterways.